“People determine their own happiness. But how content we are with life is not only and always a matter of perspective. And it’s certainly not about beauty, power or wealth — at least, not beyond an annual income of $75,000. Where we choose to live can also influence our level of happiness,” said WalletHub.

In order to determine the happiest states in America, WalletHub’s analysts compared the 50 states across three key dimensions: 1) Emotional & Physical Well-Being, 2) Work Environment and 3) Community & Environment.

They evaluated those dimensions using 28 relevant metrics. Each metric was graded on a 100-point scale, with a score of 100 representing maximum happiness.

They determined each state’s weighted average across all metrics to calculate its total score and used the resulting scores to rank-order the sample.